Super ‘leftist’

* mem

~Remodellers of Karl Marx

By. T. E.

INCE the expulsion of Fergus McKean from the Labor-Progressive Party of British Columbia and the appearance of his book “Opportunism versus Communism” in 1946, certain events have developed which organized labor must pay due heed to at this time.

Several months ago a number of more or less prominent persons were expelled from

Communist Party of the USA, among them the Bill Dunne—Sam Darcy groupings. Their ‘eft’? opportunism and fac- tional disruption were incom- patible with the policies evolved in party congresses — policies Which they themselves helped to formulate. °

In the building of a Commun- ist Party, regardless of what Country, it is inevitable that from time to time there will Cccur intense inner-party discus- Sion on basic questions of policy. The structure, organization and centralized democracy of a Com- munist party permits the widest Tenge of discussion on matters of policy and tactics. It is this ‘Centralized democracy .that en- ables a Communist Party to de- velop and enrich its Marxist ideology in keeping with exist- Mg conditions and social change.

In the process of such intense discussions on Marxist theory 8nd practice, it is also inevitable that from time to time, dissidents will be found... who have even managed to worm their way into

he top leadership of the party, who cleverly conceal their dif- ferences, and who, when expelled from the ranks of the party, be- come open enemies of the party and the labor movement.

It is the easiest thing in the World to brand all such elements ’8 Trotskyists and let it go at that. To do so is to fail to real- ize that the plausable and clev- ‘tly constructed argurnents ad- vanced by these elements—argu-

ments clothed in Masxist : phraseology and ‘condemning’ Totskyism are designed—first

to disarm jabor and its revolu- tionary vanguard, and then des- troy it. S if Was no accident of history that the adherents of Trot~ Skyism found their true zounter- revolutionary political level in © service of fascism against fon oreingclass, and first and _“Sremost against the Communist Parties, et Tt is also no accident of his- ‘ry that those who have re- ently been expelled from the USA should now set them- ey & new and hitherto un- “led task—to weld all the trot- Skyites, all the ‘left sectarians’ al the right-wing Browderite all the distorters of &rxism-Leriinism into a new oMmmunist party’. Posing as the renter of Marxism against sais Sionism’, preening their ‘ul- *-leftist’ political feathers — ae birds who only yesterday seretet,©2eh other while they or Ched in their own dunghili revisionism, now seek to unite Sout forces—to build a ‘real’ erat party. ee they set up a ‘communi- ferr, nS committee’ which would qt Out dissident ‘leftists’ in ie at movement. ang Sh the medium of letters “yn... 20dge-podge of elementary bine the dissident is pre-. Deed to be impressed with the Pr of a ‘new Marxist party’. eivaicc there on the plan is to rf shed towards groups, such as muni fstyled “P. R. Club, Com- iain Party, Expelled.” Three iene of this ‘leftist-cum- s vite’ groupings have been Gn One in New York, one in not, Re ages) and believe it or the te in Vancouver. Perhaps labor ;._'8 Chosen because B.C. presumed by these ‘re-

AY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1947

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volutionaries’ to be ‘leftist’, and also probably because they have found a political Moses in one McKean, with a new ‘Marxist’ textbook of @isruption ready to hand.

McKean’s book, ‘Opportunism versus Communism’ has found ‘recognition? in precisely those quarters where the LPP said it would. It is now recormmended as a ‘must’ by the American ‘PR club’, and all groups and indi- viduals working for 2 Marxist (2) party are urged to study, and circulate it.

e RITING in the July issue of the ‘Spark’ published: by the ‘PR club’ (incidentally the title ‘Spark’ is also a plagarization of Lenin’s paper, Iskra), Mc- Kean dolefully admits that with book and all, “. . . contrary to cur expectations did not achieve the results we had hoped for in bringing together a sufficient number of theoretically clear workers to create a real move- ment for a new party based on Merxism.” McKean explains this disappointment for ‘Spark’ sead- © ers by declaring that “the great majority of party members (LPP) had little basic under- standing of Marxism. “The mem- bership,” says McKean, “were tuught to believe that the high- est expression of discipline and loyalty was, not to participate in formulating policy but, to accept Dk the ready made policies periodically handed down by the national leaders.”

Where did this super ‘Marxist’ acquire what little he knows of Marxian economics and dialec- tics if not in the party he and his trotskyite and ‘leftist’ bed- fellows now seek to destroy? In introducing himself to ‘Spark’ readers he omitted to mention that before he joined the CPC in 1982, during the Barnett Mill strike (in which he played an crdinary and not difficult to duplicate role) he was a fanatical follower of, the Judge Ruther-

ferd sect of bible students, dabbling in astrology, star-gazing and other spiritual exercises

where the dialectics of nature ‘and science are not a required eiement of human reasoning.

Resulting from the operations of the San Francisco ‘club’ a number of B.C. aides for McKean have been unearthed. Here is a splendid example of an initial feeler sent to a leader of an im- portant local of the IWA by one of their newly-acquired decoys, Jack Greenall, now expelied from the LPP.

“Courtenay has long been known as & ‘leftist’ hangout and people. from there have been lmown to criticize the pedestals of leadership. \

The enclosed pamphlet does more than criticize and I am in- terested ir knowing what some of your ‘leftists’ think about it.

My own opinions are quite de-. finite and having expressed some of them, I am no longer ‘good company’. __ as am not asking for anything but if you consider the subject worth discussion you could let me know.” — ( ‘~he pamphlet referred to is by Bill Dunne, under the impos- ing title, “~The Struggle Against Opportunism in the Labor Move- ment — For a Socialist United States.” Like McKeaf’s ‘Oppor- tunism versus Communism’ the art of lifting quotations from

- (CIO)

their context in the works of the great classical writers and lead- ers of Socialism, and utilizing these to bolster up the political Gistortions, factionalism and ul- tra-leftism of the author is well developed. Unlike’ McKean’s book however, the pamphlet re- ferred to is a very clever piece of work, well calculated to sow doubts and dismay in working- class ranks. Its ‘critical’ attitude tcwards social democratic oppor- tunism, taken together with the “Fighting Trotskyism” in the current issues of ‘Spark’ consti- tutes a fine smokescreen of make-believe behind which the ‘leftists’ hope to destroy the CGPSUA and the LPP and estab- lish their ‘new party of Marx-

,

ism.

e HE work of these phoney ‘leftists’ can be seen in a

whole number of fields in the U.S. and Canada. Joe Curran of the National Maritime Union with his shadow-writer Hoyt S. Haddock, are now con- ducting a full-scale attack against ‘communism’ and advo- cating ‘cooperation in the ship- ping industry between ship own- ers and seamen’. These leaders want the seamen to quit beefing aLout wages, holidays with pay, shorter working hours, etc., and get batk to the good old ways

. of the shipowners. Strange- ly enough (or perhaps not so strange) the most active forces ci those right-wingers who ful- minate against communism and want to do a good job for the shipowners, are the Dunnes, Keiths, Rays, Darcys and other outcasts from the CPUSA. Seem- ingly those super-leftists who dir- ect their ire against the CPUSA are not so ‘left’ when their pol- icies in the NMU and other unions are brought under closer scrutiny.

While the process of labor unity, like that of achiéving So- cialism does not follow a ‘straight line forward’, the growing unity and reaction to Bill 389 in Brit- ish Columbia is unmistakable in the ranks of labor. Labor real- izes that Bill 39 is a statutory obstacle placed in the way of higher wage standards, and in the fight for wage increases im- poses, by necessity, a fight against Bill 39.

How do our ‘leftist’ decoys of the ‘PR’ fraternity view the is- sue? “It would be_a mistake for

labor to assume that Bill 39 is

a step. backwards,” parrots Greenall. The reaction of thou- sands of striking packinghouse, steel, furniture and other work- ers gives the lie to this cheap ‘teftist’ trickery. Since events do not stand still, if Bill 39 is “not a step backwards”, there are few who will call it ‘a step forward’. But the cardinal ‘theory’ of the ‘new left’ is that the worse the bourgeoisie make things for the workers, the more ‘revolutionary’ the latter become—if they are under “real communist” leader- ship—to wit, the leadership of the Dunns, McKeans, et al.

In a later article we will deal with some other angles of the new ‘revisionists’ from the ‘left’, ‘right?’ and ‘center,’ -who are seeking a common lair .. . to war on the parties of commun- ism and thus give aid and com- fert to the forces of bourgeois reaction who have now adopted the ‘anti-communist’ mantle of Hitler. ;

and to make stupendous sacrifices;

hort Jabs ‘by Ol’ Bill

‘ee old trouper dropped in to say ‘hello’—and reminisce. Since I had no time to listen, he picked up a copy of the News-Herald, dropped his professional air and sat back to absorb the latest news about the ‘terrible words’, as Vishinsky’s truths about the U.S. war- : mongers was described by the newsmen Lay on MacDuff’ 2n¢ radio broadcasters. He had only been reading a few minutes when he became the

Thespian again. “Lay on MacDuff and damn’d be him that first cries ‘Hold enough’!” he thundered in the best Irvingesque tones and accompanied them with suitable gestures. :

Seeing the questioning looks in all eyes, he explained, “here is a contribution from T. Duff Pattullo, former premier of British Columbia on ‘Strikers and Timid Souls!’ I must read it.’ The article was one in which the one-time Liberal gladiator makes an attempted come-back, seeking gore. He denounces those now in the office he once held and the public in general for being timid in the handling of strikers.

Like Dulles and his gang in the States, Pattullo wants action NOW. He contends that, sooner or later, a central authority will be compelled to insist that there shall be no strikes and if it is necessary “to use force to enforve the outlawing of the strike, better that it should be done now in our free society,” rather than under the regimentation of what he calls a tJtalitarian state.

When the Thespian had read to the end he laid the paper down, looked around and addressed us again. “He is impatient for action -—‘a beast’,” he said, “but not one ‘that wants the discourse of reason’. ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly’! Such speech is ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury’.” ‘ : ;

“Methinks the late honorable Duff Pattullo might say that I am one; my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world!’ Such words as he uses make one think ‘it was the ow] that shrieked! _ ‘The earth hath bubblés as the water has and these are of them’.

“No, Duff Pattullo, methinks nc one will have occasion to say of you, ‘Yet do I fear thy nature is too full of the milk of human kindness’ but will rather be inclined to inscribe on your tombstone, ‘Nothing in his life became him so well as the. leaving of it’.”

E Buzzer, or rather the people behind the FEuzzer, are worried about the delinquencies, not of the juveniles alone, but of the staid adult population as well. In their latest issue we learn what they think of honest citizens who do a little high-pressure shopping during the life of a street-car transfer. Gyps ’ “People who are otherwise paragons of virtue and shudder to think of the double standard, have no qualms about a little mild cheating like this. After all it’s only the transit company.” Since the people who use the street cars are mostly workers and their families and they only do so because they are in a clove hitch, we put this estimate down to class discrimination. —

However, the Financial Post has made us change our opinion. That red-baiting organ of the exploiters is pleased to inform its | readers that January next will see the end of the infamous Excess. Profits Tax. “Managements,” it says, “will have some pretty sen- sational house-cleaning jobs \to do . .. In many eases, businesses have got cluttered up with supernumeraries, people who occasionally do a lick of work, people it is nice to have around and who, under the EPT cost little or nothing to keep.” -

Thus is the secret out- The owners of Canadian businesses and industries, including no doubt, street car companies, are not, in their virgin business purity, above gypping the people of Canada in the

matter of paying the taxes on the swollen profits they made in the _

war years when people who do not live off profit were willingly accepting every kind of inconvenience in their daily lives, including B.C. Collectric street cars, so that victory might be won over fas- cism. .

9 Se organ of the financial wizards, the Wall Street Journal, adds its two-bits worth in the struggle to get back to the con- ditions that brought about the last war and the one that preceeded it. They use a quotation from one of the big-money boys who are

represented at the Genera) Assembly of the

Counsellors ! U.N. by John Foster Dulles, counsellor to Presi-

dent Truman and General Marshall since the

death of Roosevelt and before the U.S. came into the war, coun-— sellor to a Nazi named Adolph Hitler. —

The authority in question, Robt. L. Garner, vice-president of

the International Bank, said in an address at Tarrytown, N.Y.—

“Recovery from the devastation of the war can only come by more

work, not less; by longer hours, not shorter; ‘Sacrifice. pulling together .. .” = nee s

That reminds me of an advertisement I saw in a window in Vancouver back in the hungry days, or wick, ok Sole aye, or years, before 1914. “Buy here and we both save money,” I read, to which the buddy who was With me made the caustic com- ment, “O.K., but he saves more than you do.” No better comment — could be made on the tactics of the stolid, “honest” bourgeois steeped in respectability, proposing joint action for a common purpose. __

If any proof is needed, the history of the war years should be

sufficient. Their heart was on their sleeve during all the years of

the struggle against fascism. Joint, common action was absolutely necessary, they said, if victory was to be achieved. They spoke and wrote in that vein about the need for the Allies, including the Soviet _ Union, to “pull together,” to work longer hours, to keep wages down”

to maintain unity. a E

But today, with the victory won, their whole rogram devoted to filching from the Russians their share of tag victory. Mnene U.S. imperialism leads the pack, it’ is notable that the motion to abolish the power of veto that maintains the unity that won the war was advanced in the General Assembly by the delegates of the only openly fascist country in the U.N.—the Argentine Republic, agent for U.S. imperialism. Of course, that motion will be supported by

all the “free enterprizers” hoping for ni. ; cae : ping for nice fat loans from Uncle -

press. which appeared in the — the A.P. It read; “The potatoes was cut 50 today.” No, we read about 11 cent and everything else keeping it

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5 _

W are told that the Soviet press is different from our “ ns! It is. We do not see items like the one Moscow papers on September 18, according to . price of A different press percent : bread

company. That’s a difference!